Sometimes, Vermont leads the nation in a ranking, and other times it’s just average. So it is with our tax on gasoline.

For each gallon of gas you pump into your tank, the state takes 31 cents. The 50-state average tax is close, at 29 cents per gallon. The most expensive states, Pennsylvania, California, and Washington, tax at 50 cents per gallon or more. Gas taxes in eight states are under 20 cents per gallon, and in Alaska it’s only 9 cents.

Within New England, Vermont is also about average. Rhode Island leads the region, with a 34-cent tax, and Maine’s is the same as Vermont's. Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, are all below Vermont, with taxes in the 24- to 27-cent range.

Vermont tax more than a flat rate per gallon

It used to be easy to figure out Vermont’s gas tax, a flat amount per gallon. Several years ago, however, the legislature thought gas prices were on their way up and wanted to take advantage of that increase to have gas tax revenues increase automatically.

A flat fee per gallon does not yield any additional revenues when prices go up, so the legislature changed the gas tax to a combination of four separate fees and taxes, one of which is the traditional flat fee per gallon and others are calculated as a percentage of the price, which does increase revenue as prices rise.

In addition to the state gasoline tax, the federal government levies an 18.4 cents per gallon tax. Given today’s price of close to $3.00 per gallon, that means about fifty cents goes to the state and federal governments, a lot less than drivers in other developed nations pay.

North of the border, Canadians pay the equivalent of $1.25 per gallon in taxes. In just about every Western European country, gas taxes are well over $3.00 per gallon. In Denmark, it’s the equivalent of $2.95 per gallon, $3.10 in Sweden, $3.17 in France, $3.29 in Germany, and $3.44 in the United Kingdom.

Gasoline taxes support roadway repairs

Those nations use high gasoline taxes as just another component of their high taxes that everyone pays to finance their large social welfare systems. The U.S., by contrast, uses gasoline taxes as user fees to finance highways and other transportation infrastructure.

It is well-known that roads, bridges, and other parts of the U.S. and Vermont infrastructure need more maintenance. One reason our roadways have deteriorated is that after accounting for inflation, the 18-cent federal gas tax buys only about half of what it did in 1993, the last time Congress increased it.

Vermont’s gasoline tax is going to have trouble meeting the needs of the state’s transportation infrastructure in the future, especially if the state meets its goal of significantly reducing fossil fuel consumption. Today, fewer than 1 percent of the cars on the road are electric.

In coming years we are likely to see more hybrid vehicles on the road, which use less gas and therefore pay lower fuel taxes, and more electric cars, which use no gas and pay no fuel tax. Policymakers are eventually going to have to move from financing Vermont’s roads and highways with a gas tax to something else, such as a tax on the number of miles each vehicle is driven.